Relaxing at home

It's been a week since I left my contract job and so far I've enjoyed every minute at home. Except for the last few days before an interview. As usual, I was very nervous and started reading my CFA textbook to prepare myself for the technical questions.

Also, I have started playing Wii Fit as an attempt in losing weight. I think I have ballooned in the past 2 years that even my cousins couldn't recognize me from Facebook photos. My PIL who has encouraged me to put on weight since my wedding day has admitted that my stomach is getting too big hehehe..

As I don't really enjoyed exercising, it's quite hard to be consistent in my morning jog. I was determined to watch "Lust, Caution" at 6am this morning and was still watching it when my FIL left for jogging. And, I was still watching it when he had come back from his run and when my MIL went for her power-walk.

The weather is getting warm lately and it is actually a good weather to swim. Our apartments' pool was directly behind my unit, but I made excuses that the pool looked dirty with leaves. Hubby and I promised that we would start cycling when he's back from work but so far we only managed to go for 2 evening walks and a walk to Woolies yesterday.

Also, I should actually start studying for my level 2 CFA exams (June-2009). Well, perhaps later..

Aud is going down and down... and I'm trying to recall if anybody owes me money in Singapore. And now the deposit rate is going down, I would start looking for other deposit account once Bankwest 8.10% stops in Jan-09. I was thinking of putting some money to new NAB U-Bank account but, alas, the rate has dropped from 8.5% to 8% for 3-mth term deposit.

We are thinking of buying a house of our own but not sure of what kind of house (house, townhouse, flat), the size (2-bed, 3-bed) and location. Personally I prefer buying a less-than-ideal house first, so we could upgrade to an 'ideal' one later. So we could settle for a cheap 2-bedroom apartment somwhere near train station 15-20 km away from city, and try to repay the loan as soon as we can (thus reducing the interest expense of the loan). But 2-bedroom means we would not have spare room for guests.....

The irony about not working is that .. now I have time to pursue my hobby (dancing-ballroom/latin) but I am reluctant to spend the money. But once I start working, I am more willing to spend, but no time to do it (most of the classes are on weekdays). Maybe I would keep this hobby with my knitting project for retirement.

Talking about retirement, I have been asking my girlfriends to start planning of what type of retirement village we should go to. I think it will be more fun to retire with 'old' friends. We don't have to waste time getting to know new people, we could play cards together and we could reminisce old times. One of my girlfiend suggested that instead of going to retirement village, we could buy a large land and build our houses next to each other. Sounds good.... only that it's hard to find big land in Sydney and to agree on good location for 2 families. Let's see how it goes...